I have a lovely old steel framed road bike. Been out on it a fair bit over the last year. I bought a set of super skinny tyres for it, but find myself on gravel and dirt more than I do on tarmac. Can you recommend a fattish, hard-wearing set of tyres to stop me rattling my teeth out please?

And I can’t afford a cx bike before someone suggests the obvious solution 🙂

scwalbe marathon racers are nice (i think dureme is the same but skinnier)

panaracer paselas are lighter but slightly more punture prone. (fine for riding not great for glass strewn commuting)

michelin world tour are the budget option – but 2 or three times the weight of the above.

Cheers tt – off for a look…

Aah, sorry, my title isn’t clear – this is a road bike not an mtb.

Schwalbe Big Apple 29ers at one end if the “fat slick” scale, Conti 4seasons 28mm at the other.

Got both, like both.

Marathons in various sizes in between.

How much clearance does the bike have?

Not much clearance – skinny steel tubing leaves a little more than modern road bikes but nowhere near enough for an actual ‘fat’ tyre.

how retro is retro? does it run 27″ or 700c’s?

best bet is to have a look on sjscycles for 27″ if it’s that. How fat you can go will depend on how much frame clearance and clearance through the calipers you have. Give it a measure, tyres can vary from the invert tread type like continental and michelin touring tyres to the semi slick types.

700c’s

27″‘s

Thanks all – not that retro, just 700c. Found the Schwalbe marathons mentioned above on CRC. Just have to measure the pinch points in the stays / fork now…